About Insights: cost analytics

HPE OneSphere allows you to collect data on costs associated with your public and private provider accounts, and display them as an interactive dashboard view, or as downloadable reports. Both the dashboard view and the reports option allow you to configure data from multiple categories, including provider type, account information, region, date range, and more. Currently, HPE OneSphere only shows costs/rates in US Dollars ($).

NOTE:

The current Insights feature in HPE OneSphere replaces an older version of Insights. The new Insights feature contains many additional customizable options, and downloadable reports.

For Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cost includes all payer accounts that you connected to HPE OneSphere as Public Billing Accounts, and any member accounts associated with those payer accounts in AWS. Cost information for these member accounts will appear in Insights whether or not you have connected those member accounts to HPE OneSphere.

For Microsoft Azure, the cost includes all enterprise accounts that you connected to HPE OneSphere as Public Billing Accounts, and any subscription accounts connected to those enterprise accounts in Azure. Cost information for these subscription accounts will appear in Insights whether or not you have connected those subscription accounts to HPE OneSphere.

Only HPE OneSphere Administrators and Analysts have permission to access cost analytics information. HPE OneSphere users with the Project Creator and Consumer roles will not see Insights on their main menu. However, Consumer's will still be able to see costs associated with the particular project they are assigned to.

When you first click Insights, the System Default Dashboard view is displayed. Click Reports in the banner at the top of the screen to see the Reports screen.

After a custom dashboard view or a report is saved, it will be visible by other administrators and analysts with accounts in your HPE OneSphere management service.

About the dashboard view

Dashboards

When you first click Insights, the System Default Dashboard view is displayed. This dashboard represents the total cost for the time period shown. The total cost includes:

For Amazon Web Services (AWS): All payer accounts that you connected to HPE OneSphere as Public Billing Accounts, and any member accounts associated with those payer accounts in AWS. Cost information for these member accounts will appear in Insights whether or not you have connected those member accounts to HPE OneSphere.

For Microsoft Azure: All enterprise accounts that you connected to HPE OneSphere as Public Billing Accounts, and any subscription accounts connected to those enterprise accounts in Azure. Cost information for these subscription accounts will appear in Insights whether or not you have connected those subscription accounts to HPE OneSphere.

The System Default Dashboard view cannot be edited or deleted. You can add one or more custom dashboard views. Any custom dashboard view you add can be deleted later. Custom dashboard views contain a unique name, date range, and filter set, which can all be edited after saving your dashboard view.

The main chart on each dashboard view displays the total amount spent during the designated time period. The top figure represents the total amount spent for that period. The total spent in the previous period is located below the total spent figure and represents the previous total over the same period of time. If your dashboard is set to 90 days, the previous total will represent the previous 90 day time frame. The figures below the previous totals represent the percentage in change and the total amount changed from the previous total to the current total.

After adding multiple custom dashboards, the Dashboards screen will change to include scrolling arrows on the sides and carousel dots on the bottom of each dashboard chart, so you can easily navigate from one dashboard view to another.

Custom Dashboard Filters

The data available on each custom dashboard is defined by a set of filters. The information located in the Quick View Filters and the Report Views in each custom dashboard is also determined by how you set up your filters. For example, if you want to see costs per provider, per account, and per region, then adjust your filters in your dashboard accordingly. You can set these filters when you add or edit your custom dashboard.

If you want to experiment with different data parameters in a particular dashboard, but you do not want to make any permanent changes to how that data is arranged, do not click Save Changes. As long as you do not save your changes, any modifications you make to your dashboard view will be reset when you navigate away.

Quick View Filters

Quick view filters take the total cost for the time frame you selected, and break it down across different categories. Each category is further broken down by each item in that category, such as costs per day, per account, and per provider.

You can organize how information in each category is displayed by clicking on an individual item in a category. If you want to see how much money was spent from one account, and how much of that was spent per day in the date range you selected, click on the account you want to analyze and the information in the other categories will automatically be filtered to reflect that selection.

Clicking on the rows in these filters will cumulatively add to the existing filters. You must click Clear All to return to the default quick view filters.

Two of the available categories represent Report Views. Click on an item in one of the Report Views categories and you will be redirected to a new report on the Reports screen that you can download.

This is one of two ways to create a report. This way allows Analysts and Administrators to make a shareable report based on the information they see in the dashboard view. If there are any anomalies in spending over a particular period, this feature allows you to quickly capture that information in a downloadable report.

About cost reports

Reports

You can access the Reportsscreen by clicking on the greyed out Reportslink in the banner at the top of the default Insights screen. The first time you access the Reportsscreen, there will be no available reports. You can add and configure reports from this screen.

Reports run against the cost data that HPE OneSphere collects from your public and private providers. Reports are highly customizable. You decide what columns to include in your report, how to organize those columns, and how to filter the data to include only what you need in the report. For example, you might want to see all costs, grouped by account, but only for a particular region. You can also pivot your data by column, much like you can in Microsoft Excel.

Just like the dashboard, reports can be adjusted to show different data depending on different conditions, such as different date ranges, different columns, and so on. As long as these changes are not saved, your report will revert to its previous state once you navigate away from the page.

Adding and configuring custom dashboards

The Dashboard tab on the Insights screen shows the system default dashboard and any custom dashboards. The Dashboard screen is the default view when you first select Insights in the HPE OneSphere main menu.

The data available on each custom dashboard is defined by a set of filters. The information located in the Quick View Filters and the Report Views in each custom dashboard is also determined by how you set up your filters. For example, if you want to see costs per provider, per account, and per region, then adjust your filters in your dashboard accordingly. You can set these filters when you add or edit your custom dashboard.

The administrator added one or more Public Billing Accounts to HPE OneSphere.

Procedure

From the HPE OneSphere main menu, click Insights.

From the Dashboard screen, click the Add icon.

In the resulting right hand panel, under Name, enter the name for your custom dashboard that will be listed on the main Dashboard screen.

After adding multiple custom dashboards, the Dashboards screen will change to include scrolling arrows on the sides and carousel dots on the bottom of each dashboard chart, so you can easily navigate from one dashboard view to another.

Click the plus icon next to Filters to bring up the Filter Manager screen.

Under Field, click the search icon to display a list of available filter fields, and select the field you want to manage.

Click the drop down menu next to Operator to select the condition you want to set for your filter.

Enter the value you want to set for your filter in the Value field, and click Save.

NOTE:

Repeat steps 4-7 to add additional filters to your custom dashboard.

(Optional) At the top of the dashboard window, select the date range you want to include in your custom dashboard. For a custom date range, select the dates you want to include from the calendar drop down menus.

(Optional) Adjust the quick view filters in your custom dashboard to configure the data you want to display:

From one of the three categories under Quick View Filters, click on an individual line item to reconfigure the data in all other Quick View Filter categories to match that item.

If you want to see costs broken down for a specific account, click on the account in the Account Costs category, and all other categories will display costs associated with that account.

To see how your adjusted Quick View Filters in a downloadable report view, click one of the line items from the categories under Reports Views.

When you finish configuring your custom dashboard, click Save Changes in the top right corner.

NOTE:

Any changes you make to an existing custom dashboard view will be temporary unless you click Save Changes. If you want to see various ranges of data in your custom dashboard without saving different configurations, navigate away from the page before saving, and the next time you view the custom dashboard it will return to its previous configuration.

Adding and configuring a cost analytics report

The Reports tab on the Insights page shows all of your existing cost analytics reports, and allows you to create new ones.

NOTE:

If at any time you want to return to the HPE OneSphere main menu from the Insights page, click the HPE OneSphere icon in the top left of the screen.

The administrator added one or more Public Billing Accounts to HPE OneSphere.

Procedure

From the HPE OneSphere main menu, click Insights.

From the Insights screen, click the Reports tab.

From the Reports screen, click the green plus icon.

On the resulting screen, in the right hand column, configure your report to display the information you want to include.

At the top of the report screen, select the date range you want to include in your report. For a custom date range, select the dates you want to include from the calendar drop down menus.

NOTE:

When setting a date range, you cannot select the current date. The "To" date range parameter is always restricted to the previous day because public cloud providers take up to 24 hours to post updated billing reports.

In the right hand panel, under Name, enter the name for your report that will be listed on the main Reports screen.

Click the search icon next to Search Columns to display the available columns you can add to your report. Add the columns you want from the drop-down menu.

NOTE:

Provider and Cost columns are selected by default, but can be deleted. You can have up to a maximum of ten columns per report.

You can rearrange the order of your columns by dragging them up and down in the Columns field.

(Optional) If you want to delete a column, click the down arrow next to the column name you want to delete, and select Remove Column.

(Optional) If you want to group all your data by a specific column, drag that column into the Groups bucket and all your other columns will be arranged as part of that new group.

NOTE:

If you want to break your report down into a series of grouped data, drag more columns into the Groups bucket. Each additional column you add will serve as a subgroup of the group listed above it in the Groups bucket.

(Optional) If you want to add aggregation to a column, click the down arrow on the column header and select the conditions you want to aggregate by. A column returned as a result of applying an aggregate function (for example, Min, Max, Average, or Sum) on multiple rows is known as an aggregate column.

NOTE:

Once you aggregate a column you will not be able to move that column to the Pivot Column field. From the drop-down menu, make sure that None is selected, then you can move the column to the Pivot Field.

(Optional) If you want to rearrange your report to break down all the data for each entry in a specific column, drag that column into the Pivot Column bucket. The main reason you might add a pivot to your report is to organize aggregated data as sub-columns of a main column. You can include up to 25 total pivot columns per report.

NOTE:

Only one column can be in the Pivot Column bucket at a time, so each pivot column must be added individually.

NOTE:

Integer and decimal field-types cannot be added to the Pivot Column bucket.

(Optional) If you want to filter your report by a specific range of data in a column, drag that column into the Filters bucket, and in the resulting window, click the drop down menu in the Operator field to select the condition you want to set for your filter. Finally, enter the value you want to set for your filter in the Value field, and click Save.

NOTE:

Timestamp and date field-types cannot be added to the Filters bucket.

(Optional) If you want to increase the number of rows that are visible on a page at a time, click the drop down menu at the bottom of the screen and select the number of rows you prefer. It will be set to 25 rows as a default.

(Optional): If you want to reorder the information in a particular column on your report, click the column header.

After configuring your report, click Save Changes in the upper right corner.

Your report will now be displayed on the main Reports screen.

NOTE:

The Search bar above the list of available reports is for searching for reports by name. If you have multiple reports in your list, type the name of the report you want to see in the search window to find it.

Sample cost reports

HPE OneSphere allows you to create a variety of custom cost reports for public and private cloud providers from the Reports tab on the Insights screen. There are multiple fields available for selection when building a report.

Here are some examples of common cost reports, including the fields you will need to include in Columns, Groups, Pivot Fields, and Filters to produce the desired report.

Viewing all AWS and/or Azure resource costs including Account Name and Resource:

Viewing the start and stop times and costs for all AWS and/or Azure deployed VMs:

Reducing the scope of a cost usage report

There are two situations where you may not be able to see the full contents of a report:

To protect your browser from overload, HPE OneSphere Insights limits a report to displaying up to 10,000 rows of data. If the full set of data in your report exceeds 10,000, viewers may not be able to access some rows. There is no way to control which rows will be displayed and which will be left off.

Some queries will fail to return any results at all if the report you configured requested too much data for the system to process.

The following steps detail ways to reduce the scope of your report should either of these scenarios occur.

Replace one or more default values (shown in gray) with the costs for your environment.

The values you can update are:

Annual Fixed Cost

vCPU (per core rate/hour)

Memory (per GB rate/hour)

HDD (per GB rate/hour)

Click Update Zone.

Insights data field mapping values

HPE OneSphere normalizes the field names collected from cloud providers, so if you are collecting from multiple providers you can see cost and usage data for all providers in the same charts, reports, and insights. For your reference, the following table lists the normalized names of HPE OneSphere system fields and the names of those fields from each provider. "N/A" indicates that data for that field is not available from the provider.

Insights data field map

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

Account ID

LinkedAccountId

Subscription GUID

N/A

The Amazon AWS account ID is a 12-digit number used to create AWS resource names. The AWS account ID distinguishes resources from resources deployed in other AWS accounts. The Azure Subscription ID is a 32-digit GUID associated with an Azure Subscriber's Subscription or Program.

STRING

Account Name

AccountName

Subscription Name

N/A

Account names are text created to describe an account or subscription ID

STRING

Account Owner

N/A

Account Name

N/A

Account name associated with Azure Active Directory.

STRING

Account Owner ID

N/A

AccountOwnerId

N/A

Account ID associated with Azure Active Directory

STRING

Accounting Date

UsageStartDate

Date (from EA) or usageEndTime (from the Azure Usage API)

N/A

The Amazon AWS UsageStartDate is the start date and time for a particular resource or service deployment. The Azure Date or usageEndTime is the end of the usage aggregation time range. The response is grouped by the time of consumption (when the resource was actually used vs. when was it reported to the billing system).

DATE

Blended Cost

BlendedCost

N/A

N/A

AWS calculates blended costs by multiplying the blended rate for each service with an account's usage of that service.

DECIMAL

Blended Rate

BlendedRate

N/A

N/A

Blended rates are the averaged rates of the Reserved Instances and On-Demand Instances that are used by member accounts in an organization in AWS Organizations.

DECIMAL

Consumed Service

N/A

Consumed Service

N/A

Azure platform service that was consumed.

Cost

UnBlendedCost or Cost

ExtendedCost

Cost

The AWS UnblendedCost comes from the UnblendedRate multiplied by the UsageAmount. The Azure ExtendedCost is the estimated charge based on Consumed Quantity and Extended cost

DECIMAL

Cost Center

N/A

Cost Center

N/A

The Azure Cost Center is an optional Azure tag key.

STRING

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

CPU Utilization

CPUUtilization (InstanceId)

CPUUtil.Average

CPU Utilization

Each AWS CPUUtilization value represents the maximum CPU utilization percentage for the specified instance for a particular six-minute time period. The Azure CPUUtil.Average is the averate CPU utiization over a selected time period.

DECIMAL

Department Name

N/A

Department Name

N/A

The Azure Department is a name within the organization that contains a group of individuals. This item within the namespace is optional.

STRING

Memory Available

N/A

MemoryAvailable Memory (Linux) MemoryAvailable Bytes (Windows)

N/A

Available memory for selected VM resources.

Memory Utilization

N/A

Calculated using the memory capacity of the application's VM catalog and the Memory Available value.

Memory Utilization

Calculated using the memory capacity of the application's VM catalog and the Memory Available value.

Meter ID

N/A

Meter ID

Meter ID

The billed meter identifier that's used to price billing usage

STRING

Meter Name

Based on UsageType ​and ProductName in most cases

Meter Name

Meter Name

The AWS UsageType provides usage detail for a specific deployed resource. For example, USW2-BoxUsage:m2.2xlarge describes an M2 High Memory Double Extra Large instance in the US West (Oregon) Region. The Azure Meter Name identifies the unit of measure for the meter being consumed

STRING

Meter Category

N/A

Based on Meter Category

N/A

Identifies the top-level service for the usage

STRING

Meter Sub-category

N/A

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

Defines the type of Azure service that can affect the rate

STRING

NCS Category

N/A

N/A

Not Currently Used

STRING

NCS Description

N/A

N/A

Not Currently Used

STRING

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

NCS Project ID

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the ID number of a OneSphere project.

STRING

NCS Project Name

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the name of a OneSphere Project.

STRING

NCS Region ID

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the ID number of the Region for the selected Private Cloud.

STRING

NCS Region Name

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the name of the Region for the selected Private Cloud.

STRING

NCS Tag environment

N/A

N/A

Not Currently Used

NCS Tag line-of-business

N/A

N/A

Not Currently Used

NCS Tag tier

N/A

N/A

Not Currently Used

NCS Zone ID

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the ID number of the Zone for the selected Private Cloud.

STRING

NCS Zone Name

N/A

N/A

Y

Provides the name of the Zone for the selected Private Cloud.

STRING

Network In MB

​NetworkIn (InstanceId) and NetworkBytesIn (CacheClusterId)

NetworkIn.Total (Linux VMs only)

N/A

The AWS NetworkIn meter provides the number of bytes received by a VM per minute.

DECIMAL

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

Network Out MB

NetworkOut (InstanceId) and NetworkBytesOut (CacheClusterId)

NetworkOut.Total (Linux VMs only)

N/A

The AWS NetworkIn meter provides the number of bytes sent by a VM per minute.

DECIMAL

Operating System

Based on ItemDescription

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

?

STRING

Product

ProductName

Product

Product

The AWS ProductName is the full name of the AWS service. The Azure Product is the name of the Azure service.

STRING

Provider

Set by HPE OneSphere as "Amazon"

Set by HPE OneSphere as "Azure"

Set by HPE OneSphere as "NCS"

The distinct cloud provider name.

STRING

Provider Region

Based on AvailabilityZone (or UsageType if AvailabilityZone is empty)

Resource Location

N/A - See "NCS Region"

The AWS availability zone. The Azure data center location or region.

STRING

Provider Type

Set by HPE OneSphere as "Public Cloud"

Set by HPE OneSphere as ​"Public Cloud"

Set by HPE OneSphere as ​"Private"

The type of a cloud service provider.

STRING

Provider Zone

AvailabilityZone

Meter Region

N/A - See "NCS Zone"

The AWS availability zone. The Azure region.

STRING

Purchase Model

Set by HPE OneSphere as "Reserved," "On Demand," or "Spot"

-

N/A

The type of AWS resource deployment.

STRING

Quantity

UsageQuantity (or set to "1" if UsageQuantiy is empty)

Consumed Quantity

Quantity

The total amount of usage of a resource during the selected time. For example, if a VM is allocated with 2 CPU cores and 8GB Memory and if the VM is kept running for 10 hours, the quantity would be 20 for CPU and 80 for Memory respectively. The quantity is further qualified by the "Usage Start" and "Usage End" columns.

DECIMAL

Rate

UnBlendedRate or Rate

ResourceRate

N/A

The AWS UnBlendedRate associated with the current price of a service or product. The Azure ResourcRate is associated with the current price of a service or product.

A tag describing a resource. For private cloud, it is the name of Compute or Storage resource

STRING

Resource Type

Set by HPE OneSphere as "VM" for virtual machine records and "Volume" for storage volume records

Set by HPE OneSphere as "VM" for virtual machine records

N/A

Pre-configured by a HPE OneSphere to describe a type of resource.

STRING

Service Category

Based on ProductName

Based on Product

Set by HPE OneSphere as "Compute" for VMs and "Storage" for block storage

Displays each provisioned product's name.

STRING

Storage Read Bytes

DiskReadBytes (InstanceId) and VolumeReadBytes (VolumeId)

N/A

N/A

Bytes read from all instance store volumes available to the instance. The number reported is the number of bytes received during the period.

INTEGER

Storage Write Bytes

DiskWriteBytes (InstanceId) and VolumeWriteBytes (VolumeId)

N/A

N/A

Bytes written to all instance store volumes available to the instance. The number reported is the number of bytes received during the period.

INTEGER

Units

Based on ProductName and ItemDescription

Meter Name

Set by HPE OneSphere as one of "percent, GB, cores" based on Product and Service Category

This is the metering units that is most appropriate for the resource record. For example, a private cloud CPU Utilization record will have Units set to "percent" whereas the "VM CPU Count" record will have it set to "cores".

STRING

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

Usage End

UsageEndDate

Date (from EA) or usageEndTime (from the Azure Usage API)

Set by HPE OneSphere as the last time when the resource was still allocated

Service start date.

TIMESTAMP

Usage Start

UsageStartDate

Date (from EA) or usageStartTime (from the Azure Usage API)

Set by HPE OneSphere as the earliest time in a day when the resource was still allocated

Service end date.

TIMESTAMP

VM CPU Count

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

Set by HPE OneSphere as the number of CPU cores allocated to the VM resource (empty if the resource is not a VM)

INTEGER

VM Disk GB

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

Set by HPE OneSphere as the disk amount in GB allocated to the VM resource (empty if the resource is not a VM)

DECIMAL

VM Disk Type

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

STRING

VM Family

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

STRING

HPE OneSphere field

AWS source

Azure source

Private Cloud

Description

Data Type

VM GPU Count

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

INTEGER

VM Max Num Disk

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

INTEGER

VM Memory GB

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

Set by HPE OneSphere as the memory amount in GB allocated to the VM resource (empty if the resource is not a VM)

DECIMAL

VM Provider Series

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

STRING

VM Provider Type

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

STRING

VM Size

Based on Meter (HPE OneSphere field)

Based on Meter Sub-Category

N/A

STRING

Write Throughput

WriteThroughput (DBInstanceIdentifier)

N/A

N/A

The average number of bytes written to disk per second. (bytes/second)